


Looking for a Sign(ature)

by HamishHolmes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:25:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3415796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamishHolmes/pseuds/HamishHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones is at a One Direction concert with Joanna when he sees the other man, blonde and beautiful, in the crowd. But can he make contact before the evening is out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking for a Sign(ature)

Bones yawned and looked around. The loud, repetitive music was boring him already, and the headache that had been threatening to break all night was now letting off firecrackers in his skull. He looked again at his watch, wondering what type of venue this was, coming, as it appeared to, with its own time stopping device. He thought, as he had many times already that night, that he might go to the bathroom, merely to escape the constant repetition of chords one, four and five. This band thought that a move to chord six was a dramatic choice that couldn’t be taken lightly. Bones sighed; he was just antsy. After all, before Strawberry Fields Forever, hadn’t the Beatles been just as repetitive? Bones just wanted to go home and to listen to some of the music that he liked, at a volume that he found reasonable in his ever increasing age.

But one look at his daughter stopped all of those thoughts, sending them petering away into nothing.

Joanna radiated happiness. Her long brown hair whipped about her face as she bounced up and down to the music, seemingly oblivious to the more conservative dancing of those around her. Bones smiled. He wasn’t going to go to the bathroom, for fear of coming back to find that Joanna was no longer there. Instead, he smoothed his hair away from his face and scanned the crowd again.

This time, he caught sight of someone he hadn’t seen before.

A blond man was sat about twenty seats away, directly to his right. The man’s eyes were closed and Bones could tell that he was not here for the music, because every vocal flaw, or wrong note sent his brow twitching, just as Leonard’s did. The man was younger than Leonard, but not young enough to be there with his female friends or on a date. Bones scanned the crowd in front of the man until he saw her. She was about the same height as Joanna, and dancing with the same enthusiasm, blonde hair frizzing like a halo around her face. Her blue eyes were shining in the light from the stage and with the excitement from within. Suddenly, Bones was desperate to know if her father, as he assumed the man to be, had the same blue eyes, like sun on a spring lake.

The final chord of the encore rang out, and a thousand teenage girls screamed for more, but One Direction were having none of it. The boys made their way quickly off the stage and out of sight, much to Joanna’s disappointment.

“Dad,” she shouted in Bones’ ear, “we have to get to the stage door; I’m desperate for their autographs.”

“Okay,” said Bones, though he’d much rather get to the car and get out of the place before the inevitable traffic jam ensued.

“Thank you!”

Joanna gave him a peck on the cheek and raced off, as quickly as she could, through the crowds of people.

Her father followed, trying to keep an eye on where she was going and follow at the same pace.

Eventually, he caught up to her as she pushed against the barrier keeping the fans away from the stage door, straining for a look at the band.

Leonard stood back and leaned against the wall. Then he saw the blond man again, smiling as his daughter crushed up next to Joana.

“Hey,” Bones called.

The man looked his way, and damn he did have blue eyes, even bluer than his daughter’s.

“Hey yourself,” he said, coming over to lean beside Bones, “I take it you’re not a big fan.”

“No,” said Bones, “I’m a much more old-fashioned man, myself.”

“Me too,” said the blond, though Bones didn’t think he was old enough to be into traditional music, “I like the Beatles and Queen, amongst others. But I was just thinking that before Strawberry Fields Forever, the Beatles were just as repetitive as these guys.”

“So was I,” said Bones, amazed at how much they already had in common.

“Jim,” said the man, proffering a hand, “and that’s my little girl, Winona.”

He pointed to the girl who Bones had already assumed was his daughter.

“Bones,” he said, shaking the hand, “and that’s my not-so-little-anymore girl, Joanna, next to her.”

Jim laughed, a sound that practically bubbled out of his throat and caught Bones completely off guard.

“They do grow up fast, don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

They lapsed into a brief silence, before Jim said, “I don’t mean to pry, but I was wondering why you got lumbered with the concert gig too. You don’t see many men here.”

“Well,” said Bones, “Jocelyn, Jo’s mum, and I are divorced, and she’s gone swanning off to have the time of her life somewhere else. How about you?”

“Ah, well …”

Bones could hear Jim’s reluctance to answer.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, “not if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Jim, with a tight smile, “I was out walking in the street one day, and I couldn’t see any bin for my gum, so I ducked down an alleyway that was full of rubbish to see if there was a bin in there somewhere. And when I got to the end, I heard this agonised and awful crying. I opened up a duffel bag and found Win. I haven’t looked back since.”  
Jim looked at his daughter as if she was the light of his life and his reason for living. Bones understood that, after all, didn’t he think the same thing about Jo on a daily basis?

“That was fantastic thing you did,” said Bones, putting a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“I just did what anyone would have.”

Bones didn’t disillusion the man and tell him that many people would not have taken the baby in and cared for her for many years, that most people would have taken her to the nearest orphanage and dumped her there.

“But you look so alike,” he said instead, wondering how on earth they were so similar.

“I know,” laughed Jim, “it’s quite the coincidence.”

Just then, a scream from the crowd of teenage girls alerted the two men to the fact that the band had just come through the door. They were signing some autographs, but both men, stood at the back of the crowd, could see that they were just waiting to get out of there.

“I feel a sudden urge to get something autographed by someone I don’t even like,” said Bones with a grin.

Jim grinned back, blue eyes sparkling.

“I know what you mean,” he said, “how about mine?” 

“W-what?” stammered Bones, although he had heard exactly what the man had said.

“You sign me and I’ll sign you.”

“Okay.”

Bones whipped a spare sharpie out of his back pocket where he had been keeping Jo’s earlier. He motioned to Jim to turn around, which the younger man did. Bones tugged Jim’s collar slightly lower and signed the back of his neck.

“How am I supposed to read it there?” asked Jim, pouting.

“I never said I was going to make it easy.”

Bones’ grin and one raised eyebrow cause Jim to flush a little before grabbing the sharpie.

“Well then I won’t either,” he said, pulling up the bottom hem of Bones’ polo shirt and signing across his coccyx.

“Thanks,” said Bones, supressing the shiver that was trying to run through him.

Jim slipped the pen back into Bones’ pocket and smiled.

“I got it!” yelled Win, running up to Jim and leaping into his hurriedly prepared arms. Jim twirled her for a single instant and then said:

“Got what, honey?”

“Liam’s Signature!” she yelled.

Mere moments later, Bones was greeted by an equally enthusiastic Joanna, racing up and declaring that she had got Harry’s signature.

“That’s great, darlin’,” said Bones, giving her a kiss on the top of the head, “but we had better get going. After all, I have work tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Joanna, standing back on her own two feet, “sorry Dad, I forgot.”

“No bother Kid,” he smiled and took her hand, “I’ll see you around, Jim?”

“I hope so,” said Jim, leading Winona away, “I really hope so.”

***

Later that night, as he took off his shirt, he saw a glimpse of the writing on his back. Twisting and turning, he tried to read it, but every time he turned, the writing got all scrunched up. After about five minutes, he realised that Joanna was stood at the doorway, covering her giggles with a hand.

“Alright then, darlin’,” he said, “do you fancy coming over here and reading this for your old dad?”

“Yeah,” said Jo, coming closer, but why do you have writing there?”

“I signed Jim’s neck to annoy him, so then he signed my back.”

“Fair enough,” said Jo, who thought that that was a perfectly dumb reason, but knew that it would do no good to say that to her dad.

She held him steady with her hands on his hips.

“It says, _Dear Bones, 07789 49372, Jim P.S. Stay Hot.”_

“Thank you,” said Bones, “now you can wipe off the smirk that I know you are wearing and pass me my phone, please.”

“Ooh, Dad’s got a new crush!”

“Get out of here,” said Bones, swatting her arm playfully.

***

“And that was how these two fine men, who got married today, met,” finished Joanne, lifting her champagne glass high.

When everyone had gone back to eating and Jo had been hugged by both men, she realised something. She asked Winona first, wondering whether she knew the answer, but the other girl was just as oblivious.

“You never told us what Dad wrote on your neck,” she said to Jim.

“Just _Bones_ ” said Jim, “I think he knew that I’d wrote my number down.”

Bones and Jim smiled at each other. After all, the girls didn’t need to know about the apostrophe.


End file.
